How Jessica Pegula, Maria Sakkari broke Naomi Osaka’s “golden rule of tennis” on Netflix’s Break Point

For season two of Break Point, Netflix seems to have listened to viewer feedback and revamped their storytelling approach, with each episode centering around one or a few players and checking in behind the scenes at key moments throughout the 2023 season.

Producers struck narrative gold with episode five Now or Never, which follows Jessica Pegula and Maria Sakkari—two Top 10 regulars with a reputation for consistent results, but who have yet to make the leap into Grand Slam success. Pegula has appeared in six major quarterfinals, while Sakkari’s best results remain the 2021 Roland Garros and US Open semifinals.

As Naomi Osaka explains in one of her several insightful confessionals, “Maria Sakkari and Jessica Pegula have been consistently reaching for that one trophy. But the longer that goes on, you put so much pressure on yourself, that you kind of put it in this unattainable realm.

“You go into it thinking, ‘This is my last chance to make a mark.’”

To drill down on that point even more, Break Point introduces 28-year-old Sakkari and 29-year-old Pegula alongside Anett Kontaveit. The former world No. 2 waved farewell to the sport at Wimbledon, retiring at the age of 27 due to chronic injury. Her brief cameo during a practice session with Sakkari at that tournament only dialed up the tension and underscored the stakes.

Now or Never tracks Sakkari and Pegula’s parallel journeys, starting with disappointing exits at Wimbledon that felt like real missed opportunities: Sakkari was stunned in the first round by Marta Kostyuk, and Pegula fell in the quarterfinals to Marketa Vondrousova. This sets up a satisfying narrative arc, culminating in moments of redemption at Washington DC, Montreal and Guadalajara.

These editing choices might irk hadcore tennis fans who were expecting a more complete rehashing of the 2023 season in the popular style of Drive to Survive, the Netflix hit about Formula 1—but it’s also a good reminder that these digestable episodes are meant to be consumed by casual and beginner fans who won’t be bothered by the hand-waving of a few details.

During the most emotional moments of the episode, Sakkari and Pegula share another parallel as they both reach for their phones and scroll social media after a tough day at the office—breaking Osaka’s “golden rule of tennis”:

“The golden rule of tennis is never look at Twitter or Instagram during a tournament, and don’t look at it after a tournament either,” Osaka explains. “And you should definitely mute certain words…”

The golden rule of tennis is never look at Twitter or Instagram during a tournament, and don’t look at it after a tournament either. Naomi Osaka on Netflix's Break Point

World No. 5 Pegula and No. 8 Sakkari closed out the episode on a bittersweet note, as both eventually returned to the winners circle with statement victories at WTA 1000s in Montreal and Guadalajara—but the major titles and big finals still continued to elude them. And both players recently landed on Tennis.com’s Expert Picks as the women’s Top 8 seeds most likely to suffer an early exit at the Australian Open, meaning they still haven’t shaken off the reputation for underperforming in big moments.

Pegula summed it up quite nicely when she admitted, “It’s hard to stay present, but I think I need to step it up. You do need to get gritty, or bitchy, or ruthless—whatever you want to call it. You just need to hunker down and just find a freaking way to win it.”

But it was Sakkari who said it best, closing out the episode with an spicy message to the doubters and haters: “That’s not very ladylike to say, but yeah f$ck them all. I don’t give a f$ck.”